NNTP Gateway for Usenet ( Newsgroups ), Mailing Lists

The latest version: V3.5.0Alpha 1 (21 Jul 2005)

What is it?

This hack provides a gateway from vBulletin forums to the USENET. It allows forum members to read newsgroup messages as well as to send posts to the newsgroups. In a nutshell, it turns vBulletin forums into a basic function news reader.

For an added bonus, this package also supports mailing list archive and forum to mailing list gateway. The software retrieves messages from a pop3 account and import them into the forums threaded. It also allows a forums user to send messages to the mailing list by the forum posting interface.

Why?

The gateway will be appreciated by forum members who do not know how to set up a news reader, or people who do not have port 119 open in their network. A forum interface to read and post news are often considered to be better than a news reader.

The gateway adds more contents to your forums and allows the members to interact with wider audience. It is common to see new users signing up to use this feature.

History

This hack was originally coded by Gilby for vB2. I modified the hack to work with vB3 and have been maintaining and improving the hack. I have now done the modification for this to work with vB3.5.

The very original hack by Gilby can be found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...7&page=1&pp=15

The vB3 version can be found here:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=65152

Features

Some of the features and improvement include:

• Handles both newsgroup posts and mailing lists.
• Handles MIME encoded messages and attachment.
• Handles UUEncoded messages.
• Two Admin Control Panels for all settings.
• Automated installation.
• Correct thread implementation. All imported messages and posts sent to newsgroups will be threaded correctly according to References and Message-ID headers.
• Optional setting to thread by subject for mailing lists that strip references header.
• Imported messages will be searchable just like normal forum posts.
• Similar threads are built when the messages are imported if the system setting is on.
• Multiple attachments importing.
• Save attachment to database or file according to vB setting.
• Thumbnail created while importing image files.
• Multiple attachment post to newsgroup is also supported.
• Selectable X-No-Archive header honouring system.
• Light on system resources.
• Global Killfile to filter out unwanted messages. Killfiles can have OR and AND effectiveness.
• Strip footer by setting for incoming messages. Strips out repeated message footers.
• Built options to disable signatures and footers for out going messages.

Future development

• Traditional "> " lead posting interface.

What do you need and do not need?

You do not need to edit vB php files.
No need to manually run SQL.

Installation

Basically the AdminCP interfaces take care of installation as well as upgrade in the background. Back up your database first. The scripts can modify your database without alerting you!

Please follow the instructions in the readme.txt file for more details.

It is not a must to click "INSTALL" for this hack if you use it, I do try better answering the questions from people who do.

Support

Please post your support questions to this thread. Please check the FAQ in the second post within this thread first. It may be surprising, but it is possible your question is answered in the adminCP NNTP settings.

Please always provide more details about your problem. Examples and debug messages will certainly help. Well, if you don't even try to have some effort to compose your question, the answer you get may also not include much effort.

================== UPDATES ======================
Jul 21 2005 (release version 3.5.0 Alpha 1)

AdminCP xml file is written by Kadence.

• Ported to work with vB3.5.
• Existing bug fixes.
• Debug message can be sent by email or logged in vB Tast Scheduler.
• Known problem: image attachment thumb nail creation still needs work.
• Needs to be done: Documentation.

Quick installation instruction:
1) Upload files to their correct directory
2) Enter AdminCP, click on NNTP Settings once to install/upgrade. Change settings to your like.
3) Click on NNTP Groups once to install/upgrade.
3a) For new install. Run once
http://www.yourdomain.com/setlastmsg.php

Delete this file afterwards.
If you are upgrading from an older version. There is no need to upload this file. Actually this file should not be there except brand new install.

4)
Manually run in debug mode: http://forums.yourdomain.com/gateway.php?debug=1

[dodgez]

Originally Posted by dodgez

admin <admin.1svs8r@test>, UNEXPECTED_DATA_AFTER_ADDRESS@.SYNTAX-ERROR.

It didn't send it as my typed in e-mail address. This is on RC1 also. Thanks for the great hack.

[Cyburbia]

I don't think it's running properly with my installation.

The instructions include:

7. The gateway script has been designed to be run periodically. There are two ways to achieve this.

You can use the vB3's internal Scheduled tasks to run the script automatically.

Go to AdminCP, under Scheduled Tasks, create a new task to run every one hour. Enter 'gateway.php' in the filename section. Usualy you would like the script to run more often than once each hour. You can create more than one tasks to run at different minutes of the hour to achieve this.

I did just that, but when I try to run the script manually (Scheduled Tasks -> Scheduled Task Manager -> Mailing List Gateway -> Run Now) I get the source of a raw HTML file instead of the standard "Done" blue screen. Permissions are set so that gateway.php is executable, and the location of gateway.php is correct, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Cyburbia

I don't think it's running properly with my installation.

The instructions include:



I did just that, but when I try to run the script manually (Scheduled Tasks -> Scheduled Task Manager -> Mailing List Gateway -> Run Now) I get the source of a raw XML file instead of the standard "Done" blue screen. Permissions are set so that gateway.php is executable.

What is displayed on the screen?

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by dodgez

It didn't send it as my typed in e-mail address. This is on RC1 also. Thanks for the great hack.

Sorry, I think I am lost.

[Cyburbia]

Originally Posted by lierduh

What is displayed on the screen?

This:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html dir="ltr" lang="en">
<head>
	<title>Scheduled Task Manager - (my site) - vBulletin Admin Control Panel</title>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="../cpstyles/vBulletin_3_Default/controlpanel.css" />
	<script type="text/javascript">
	<!--
	var SESSIONHASH = "";
	function set_cp_title()
	{
		if (typeof(parent.document) != 'undefined' && typeof(parent.document) != 'unknown' && typeof(parent.document.title) == 'string')
		{
			parent.document.title = (document.title != '' ? document.title : 'vBulletin');
		}
	}
	//-->
	</script>
	<script type="text/javascript" src="../clientscript/vbulletin_global.js"></script>

</head>
<body style="margin:0px" onload="set_cp_title();">
<div class="pagetitle">Scheduled Task Manager</div>
<div style="margin:10px">
<!-- END CONTROL PANEL HEADER -->

<p><b>Mailing list gateway</b></p><p>Done</p>

<!-- START CONTROL PANEL FOOTER -->
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.vbulletin.com/" target="_blank" class="copyright">vBulletin v3.5.0 Release Candidate 1, Copyright &copy;2000-2005, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.</a></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Just raw HTML.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by Cyburbia

This:
Just raw HTML.

I saved that as html and sent for validation. It passed without any problem. So I have no idea why your browser is not rendering that.

By the way, embedded in the html. It does have the

"Mailing list gateway Done"

[Cyburbia]

Originally Posted by lierduh

I saved that as html and sent for validation. It passed without any problem. So I have no idea why your browser is not rendering that.

By the way, embedded in the html. It does have the

"Mailing list gateway Done"

Okay ... it seems to work in IE, but not Mozilla Firefox.

Just a question: has anyone gotten this to work with Yahoo Groups? Here's what I'm using:

Newsgroup/Mailing list E-mail: [nameofgroup]@yahoogroups.com
(the e-mail address a subscriber can use to send a message to the entire group.
Server: cyburbia.org
User name (only if required): [gateway email address used as email address+cyburbia.org]
(as listed for "Email Address - Choose the email address that you would like group messages sent to. My Web host requires you to put "+domainname.tld" at the end of user names for retrieving and sending e-mail.)
Password: [POP password]

[ExpertDomino]

Should this be tried on a Live Board.............can anyone show me a working demo?

[Cyburbia]

Okay ... I think I have it retrieving messages from mailing lists. However, I can't use the gateway in the opposite direction; posting in the forum and having the message appear on the list.

I posted a test message in the gatewayed forum. I ran the script in debug mode, and got the following:

Gateway version 2.3.2 1 group(s) gatewayed.
Successfully connected to the 'cyburbia.org' pop3 server.
Retrieving 0 E-mails from the 'cyburbia.org' pop3 server.

Retrieving, yes. Sending ... no.

[custsrvcrep]

Hi Lierduh,
two questions:

1. How involved is the upgrade path from 3.0.x to 3.5.x with your usenet hack installed? It runs great on the old version and I'm not excited about the change but realize I need to upgrade

In other words - what is the best path? Ignore usenet hack; upgrade to 3.5.x (upon final release); THEN install revised usenet hack? If that is true, is there any affect to the database since the hack has added various fields?

OR ???


2. Have you ever integrated an automatic scheduled pruning of usenet posted messages?

Thank you.